Bison Transport team drivers come to aid of accident victim

NIPIGON, Ont. -- A pair of heroic Bison Transport team drivers recently came to the aid of a motorist in distress, according to the company. At about 3:45 a.m. on Nov. 29, George and Cynthia Sutherland were heading westbound on the Northern...

December 5, 2012
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NIPIGON, Ont. — A pair of heroic Bison Transport team drivers recently came to the aid of a motorist in distress, according to the company. At about 3:45 a.m. on Nov. 29, George and Cynthia Sutherland were heading westbound on the Northern Route 17 heading towards Nipigon, Ont., when George noticed tire tracks in the snow that left the highway. No vehicle was in sight.

A quarter-kilometre up the road, the pair were flagged down by a 20-year-old man standing in the eastbound lane.

The Sutherlands pulled over to find the man with an open wound on his forehead and no hat, with ice in his hair and snow and ice packed into his jacket. The temperature at the time was -11 C with a wind chill of -17 C.

Noting the man was disoriented and freezing, George and Cynthia got the stranger into their transport truck and gave him a winter jacket. When they believed the man was not warming up quickly enough, they put him into their bed and wrapped him up.

They then called the OPP and met up with them, as well as paramedics, at a Tim Horton’s near Nipigon. After an examination, the emergency team discovered a cut on his leg in addition to his head wound from being thrown from his half-tonne truck in an accident earlier that night.

It was later discovered that before George and Cynthia arrived, another motorist did stop to assist the man, offering him shoes – which had been thrown off from the force of the accident – though he had no room to offer a ride in his vehicle. He later reported his findings at the local police station.

“I know for a fact that hypothermia would have set in very quickly had George and Cynthia not stopped to assist this young man,” Bison safety counselor Martin Cowie later told Truck News.

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George and Cynthia, we need more people like you in the world, so that more stories like these can have a happy ending. Your both caring and compassionate people… the kind of people I am glad are on the road. Great Job!!